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The fine print that follows you out the door: non-compete clauses are spreading
- Alien1Being 3mo agoWith the recent well publicised cases of developers stealing proprietary information, this is going to become more common.
- metoobruh 3mo agoWhen it comes to enslavement to giant corporations or government, all I can say is: "The only winning move is not to play."
- p1esk 3mo agoIt’s nice to be rich I guess
- bigyabai 3mo agoIt's even nicer having freedom.
- j-bos 3mo agoOften bought with riches.
- bigyabai 3mo agoMore often with principles.
- Grimblewald 3mo agoi think you underestimate the starting capital required to be able to stand with principles in the modern world. I'm lucky to be in such a position, but I'm also aware few are.
- Guestmodinfo 3mo agoYou don't need money to live a principled life. Change your life lens. Seek the truth, change the company. There are several places that don't ask you to compromise your morals or principles. Be in touch with principled people, learn from them. I never care about money and so I never have it but I have never been found wanting when I need it. God will make it happen. No worries.
- fhfnfhfbjffj 3mo agoYou’re not enlightened. You’re ignorant.
- cortesoft 3mo agoFreedom is pretty useless without food
- metoobruh 3mo agoThe other day I was digging through a grocery store dumpster, pulling out a truck load of good food for free, as usual. A couple young Indian immigrants came walking by, avoiding eye contact with this dirty, low class American. I offered one of them a beer. He was excited for about .5 seconds, then asked, "Wait, did that come out of the dumpster?" and suddenly decided he didn't want it. Shrug. Back to the cubicle for him I guess.
- eikenberry 3mo agoOr be willing to move.
- metoobruh 3mo agoOr be willing to do without all the fluff and luxuries and live a simple and humble life, to avoid enslavement of oneself and one's family to the Beast.
- thin_carapace 3mo agoi rarely use ai, however i must constantly sift through ai blog posts like this one to find actual communication. should i leave the internet to win the game against ai? well i did the next best thing and got a nokia brick phone, yet facebook still knows how to recommend those i meet in real life!! i tried not playing but im still in the game. does that mean the only way i can win is to kill myself?
- Alien1Being 3mo agoThat strategy would not be guaranteed to work. An AI simulation of you would post on HN. Welcome to the future. As always 99% of it is poor quality slop...
- em-bee 3mo agowhy are you on facebook?
- thin_carapace 3mo agoi have an account from when i was a teenager that i sometimes use to talk to family. why do you ask? based on my anecdote we are all tracked by facebook, whether or not we are on facebook.
- cortesoft 3mo agoIt was confusing hearing that Facebook was recommending people to you when you made it sound like you were choosing to opt out of those things. I am not sure how your anecdote would show you are all tracked by Facebook even if you aren't on facebook; you only received recommendations for people to friend on facebook because you are on facebook. I am not on facebook, so i have never had facebook recommend anyone to me.
- thin_carapace 3mo agomy phone cant run facebook. by choosing this phone i am opting not to have facebook track me on a constant basis. however, based on whatever signals are available to everyone elses phones, facebook still tracks me. and facebook is doing the same to everybody including you - not sure if youre aware of the concept of shadow profiles?
- Hnrobert42 3mo agoIn all cases where I was presented with an unreasonable non-compete, I either negotiated it away or scratched it out before signing. I know not everyone has that luxury, but if your BATNA is signing, it's worth a shot.
- j-bos 3mo agoEasier to do when there's paper to scratch.
- anon291 3mo agoIf they've not offered you anything, the non compete is certainly not valid.
- parpfish 3mo agoI think the implication is that it’s easier to modify paper than a Docusign form where the only option is “click here to sign”
- Grimblewald 3mo agono, as in physical contracts you _can_ scratch something out on are becoming rare. Usally some fuckass digital signing service or another, tgat barely works on chrome let alone firefox.
- anon291 3mo agoI understand now
- teeray 3mo agoI wonder if anyone has tried presenting an “Artist Rider” to similar effect.
- jmcgough 3mo agoThankful that California banned them, others should follow suit.
- sys_64738 3mo agoNot worth even printing out where I am. They are worthless.
- anon291 3mo agoJust ignore them completely unless you're an executive.
- radicaldreamer 3mo agoNot enforceable in California
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3mo agoThere's a strong argument to be made that the banning of non-competes is the main reason California is the software capital of the world.
- parpfish 3mo agoI’d be fine signing a non compete if they ever offered anything in return. If they want me to stay out of the market for a period of time, they better pay garden leave or SOME sort of consideration
- helterskelter 3mo agoStory time for NC's. I had a doctor that lived near me working at a medical clinic that got bought up by PE. He signed the new contract with them and kept working for a while, but decided he needed to move for one reason or another. After he quits, PE informs him of the NC in the new contract he signed, and that he wouldn't be able to practice medicine for N years (I think it was something like 5). He ended up hanging himself, and in response, the clinic's staff quit en masse and basically dared the PE company to try and enforce the clause. PE backed down because suing all the doctors individually would have cost too much and it would have been awful PR for the practice. They ended up selling the clinic before the year was out.
- zulux 3mo agoFYI - there are already a few states that don't allow companies to enforce such draconian noncompetes. Moving to California is better than killing yourself most of the time.
- teaearlgraycold 3mo agoClearly something else was going on. No mentally healthy person would kill themself because of this.
- asib 3mo agoYou are clearly incapable of putting yourself in the shoes of someone who is being told they cannot pursue their vocation for half a decade.
- teaearlgraycold 3mo agoCannot pursue your vocation in certain jurisdictions. And there are plenty of adjacent fields I suspect wouldn't be covered by the NC - like education.
- em-bee 3mo ago
- RayVR 3mo agoNon-competes in finance almost always come with compensation during the defined period. The idea that a company can restrict at-will employee’s post-separation employment is absurd if they aren’t compensating the individual. In many US states and countries outside the US, the enforcement of non-competes is very very hard. The problem is that they create a RISK of enforcement.
- J-Kuhn 3mo agoBy some logic: * If they want to tell someone personally what to do or not to do, is some form of employment. * If it is not paid, it can be considered slavery. * It is usually possible to quit jobs.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3mo agoExecutive level non-competes are probably the most damaging for the overall economy though. If there's a market-dominating company, and execs are allowed to leave said company, start a competitor, get some investor dollars behind them, then start poaching employees from the old company, the market can have a really viable competitor quite quickly. Without that ability, little monopolies spring up throughout the economy and use their size to crush upstarts, under-compensate their employees, overcharge their customers, and squeeze their suppliers. Banning non-competes is an absolute requirement for free-market capitalism to function properly.
- jambalaya8 3mo agoSalient arguments, although I am personally of the belief that limited non-competes make some sense, at least in the US, at least in some fields. One of the other respondents mentioned one of the main issues with a DIY attitude towards modifying NCDs is the advent of digital signing of NCDs now, and I concur that NC documents really should be paper (though I can see an argument for adding a blockchain-like element/step with a digitized document that would capture the crossed-out sections). I used to deal with sections of NC forms I did not like this way myself. A lot of people don't like non-competes but I think people give them a bad reputation sometimes. Not when they are being abused (like the case of the doctor and PE mentioned elsewhere, and as I said in some cases NCs make little sense to me; if it is isn't research-related, and/or doesn't involve some sort of patent or novel procedure or tech or research, it clearly makes less sense), but certainly when they serve to prevent people from running off and starting a new company and competing with the company they just left (e.g., how the AI field especially is getting very glutty and 'competitive' now; it resembles less of a free-market and more like Battle Royale in ways). Pretty sure non-competes prevent economic collapses, layoffs and bankruptcies for many companies. The danger is abuse of them, not their existence. I don't think banning them outright is good. Especially in Fintech, which is a field rife with moral and ethical quandaries. I do want to point out that it irks me when people make a big deal complaining about a non-compete afterwards, when they know they signed a non-compete prior to a meeting or job or role somewhere. Part of the point of non-competes is that generally the people that want you to sign them know there is a reason you would want to talk about something or use it elsewhere. Abuse should be prevented and preventable by both sides of the non-compete and NDA processes though. Should someone be prevented from working with models after working with them at another company? Maybe. If you sign and say yes and you are paid (even if it is not after you leave; you were given notice, though clearly you may not like it; the ability to renegotiate should exist before leaving), then, like it or not, you signed it. But a better approach is just more specific NC clauses (specific sorts of models or specific fields being ruled out, not the whole shebang). But as I said, I see good reasons for them existing.
- yieldcrv 3mo agoI don't think I can live outside of California at this point I don’t even negotiate these clauses I just have so much assurance the state is going to throw out the case that I just let the client shoot themselves in the foot, and silently get invested in seeing which other ways they’ll mess up
- eikenberry 3mo agoWashington State also passed a non-compete ban that will take effect July 2027.
- yieldcrv 3mo agoHm progress, need to see how the courts handle it in that state
- donbox 3mo agoAlso not enforceable in Ontario Canada since 2021.
- senderista 3mo agoSadly Amazon has been known to enforce its 18-month NC in WA state (not sure if they’ve ever prevailed in court). They will absolutely not negotiate on this.
- Terr_ 3mo ago> Sadly Amazon has been known to enforce its 18-month NC in WA state I'm darkly-amused by how this really makes Amazon sound like a quasi-governmental entity. AFAICT a lawsuit (Burns v. Amazon) on that is ongoing.
- jmward01 3mo agoThese are often not disclosed until you start. Day 1 'paperwork' that drastically changes the agreed upon terms of employment well after you have left a previous position. In some cases they are even forced on you after having worked somewhere for a while and future employment is predicated on them. They are evil. I almost quit my job over this, but of course how can you afford to not work while searching? And searching while out of work is far harder than while still working. We need penalties on companies that do this, not just a ban. 'Sign this or you are fired' documents after you are hired should have repercussions.
- greazy 3mo agoAustralia is limiting / banning non competes for certain workers https://www.mlc.org.au/whats-changing-with-non-compete-clauses-in-aus/ https://www.mlc.org.au/whats-changing-with-non-compete-claus...
- redwood 3mo agoThis is one of the primary impediments to New York's tech ecosystem